Without a Fanfare
by Amelia Friend
Summary: 'It wasn't supposed to end this way. They were supposed be invincible.' One-sided Leo/Lisa.


**Okay – so I may have gotten a **_**little**_** obsessed with 'Les Mis' since I saw it in the West End of Wednesday, but so what? It was brilliant!**

**If you want to see my inspiration for this story, just look on Youtube for the London version (not the 25****th**** anniversary one) of 'A Little Fall of Rain'. It's so sad!**

**Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

When Lisa Gheradini was born, she was screaming.

Her parents were overjoyed.

In time, she grew up, and she stopped screaming, until her parents told her of a marriage that she had no control over.

She began screaming again, screaming silently – and in that scream lonely little Lisa disappeared, and Tomaso was born.

Brilliant Tom who could paint and fence, and do whatever he (she) wanted to do.

Brilliant Tom, with new brilliant friends – Lorenzo and Mac and … Leo – Leo, who was a genius, but couldn't see her feeling if they stared him in the face. (Which they did. A lot.)

But then the Milanese murdered the old Duke, and a new one came.

But then Leo made a super weapon, which would save so many lives, by taking so many more.

* * *

But then they went to war, for even if Lisa shouldn't, Tom had to, and anyway he (she thought of herself more as a boy than a girl nowadays) couldn't leave his friends behind.

So here they were, only eleven days in, and no longer the same.

With Leo's super weapon, Rocco was sure they'd take Milan before the week was out, as was Piero (and in all honesty, Tom hated Piero, but he trusted his judgement in this matter).

They had been split up, but Tom was still with Leo, even if they didn't know where Mac or Lorenzo were anymore.

But still, they weren't the same children, the same … innocents, that they had been , less than two weeks before.

They had killed, all of them.

And they had seen comrades, some even younger than them – killed before their eyes.

But still, they believed themselves invincible.

They didn't act rashly, nor recklessly – just didn't think that one of the dead bodies they passed each day could ever be one of them.

* * *

"Tom!" Leo hissed sharply from where he stood, as she clambered the makeshift barricade to where they were sleeping for the night. "Have you no fear!"

She jumped silently the last metre to the floor, even while pulling her thin coat further around herself – thick clothes and armour were for the _real_ soldiers, not for young boys like them.

She stumbled as she took a step forward, her eyes once more locking with Leo's. "I don't think I can stand anymore," she told him, even as she fell forward, and would have plummeted to the ground had Leo not caught her.

"Tom?" He questioned, worried. "What's wrong?" Leo brushed the short hair of her wig out of her eyes, and sticky substance remaining on his hand even after he pulled it away.

He glanced at his hand – red.

He pulled Tom's coat away from her chest, the same red coating her chest.

She just looked down, shock filling her eyes, as she tightened her grip on Leo.

She let out a short laugh, "I thought it would hurt." She looked up from where she now lay on the ground in his arms (a place she had dreamt of being for _so_ long). "Why doesn't it hurt?" She didn't look in pain, just confused.

Leo tried to place her on the ground, but she held on to him tighter.

"Please don't leave me," she begged, the first time in her life she had ever done so. "Please don't leave me."

"You need to get help," Leo tried to explain, tried to leave.

"Please don't leave me alone," she begged, a single tear rolling down the side of her face.

"I'll go," another young boy offered, running for the medical tent before he received an answer.

Leo relaxed as Tom tensed up, rolling into Leo's shirt and gasping in pain.

After a few moments, it passed, and she released her death grip on Leo.

"I've changed my mind about it not hurting," she tried to joke – no one smiling.

A crowd was forming around them, like it was some _spectacle_!

She was _dying_, and they were just _watching_.

A second tear fell down her face, and then a third and a fourth, until she couldn't stop them anymore.

She tried to sit up, tried to prove she wasn't going to … wasn't going to…

She couldn't do, and fell back down, dislodging her wig, and a single long lock of hair fell from the back of it.

Another wave of pain reached her, emanating from her chest, but filling her entire body, and she turned into Leo once more, pulling her already dislodged wig away from her head, revealing long hair that reached not far past her shoulders, and marking her firmly as a girl.

They didn't bother to try and hide it – what were they going to do?

Kill an already dying girl?

"Leo," she whispered, all too aware of the gathering around them. "I'm scared." She admitted, still trying to be brave despite the tear tracks on her face.

But she couldn't be brave forever.

Leo could see the medical team in the distance, and was screaming in his head for them to hurry up.

But it wasn't going to do Lisa any good.

She tensed up and rolled into Leo, muffling another cry into his shirt.

The wave of pain finished, she looked up into his eyes, and she smiled – a true smile – her eyes lighting up, before she relaxed completely into his arms, her eyes closing for the final time.

She was gone, but still the crowd remained, murmurs starting to arise from the previously silent group.

"Her name was Lisa." Leo's voice was quiet but commanding. "And all she wanted was to paint."

* * *

When Lisa Gheradini was born, she was screaming.

Her parents were overjoyed.

When Lisa Gheradini died, she was afraid.

Her family cried.

* * *

**Thank you for reading, and please review,  
Mia.**


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